


you’re my miracle, my sweet contrary

by liminal



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M, also 100 per cent more swearing because you bet Georgiana isn’t afraid of a four letter word, and 100 per cent more legal jargon because it's obviously central to the plot, now with 100 per cent less angst than my last sanditon story, the modern AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 07:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: The summer ends with Harry and Esther’s shotgun wedding, a faded t-shirt folded at the foot of the bed, text messages that hurt to read and hurt to write...Charlotte Heywood leaves Sidney Parker on read.Sanditon, 2019. In which they’re not quite friends, not friends with benefits, and they’re definitely not over each other.





	1. i.

Fire breaks out along Waterloo Terrace and a £50 million development goes up in smoke. Once news gets out that the risk was uninsured, that the project’s largest backer is threatening to pull out, the shit really hits the fan.

Journalists who have been circling for months, optimistic and cautious and sceptical in turn, swoop like vultures, picking the flesh from the bones of Tom Parker’s ambition. The Telegraph deems him one of the greatest financial liabilities this side of the recession, a man whose career is one story after another of grand designs and bailouts. The Financial Times’ obituary runs for three pages, scathing in its critique of Parker Properties Ltd, the company’s spiralling debts, the failure of its board members to reign in the CEO’s ludicrous ambitions.

_“As fanciful as Willy Wonka, but no golden ticket in sight,”_ opens The Guardian’s op-ed, and it doesn’t get any kinder.

Down on the south coast, Charlotte Heywood - intern turned au-pair turned bona fide member of the Parker family - watches the dust settle.

“Fucking hell, Tom! No insurance? How the hell was that not a condition of any of the investments?”

“We were negotiating premiums! We were just past renewal, I was getting somewhere, I-“

Sidney Parker, pacing in his brother’s kitchen, is livid. It’s almost impressive, the way he rages with an icy fury, switching seamlessly between berating Tom and point-blank refusing to join the media circus damning his brother’s venture.

“You were negotiating? That’s what you have fucking brokers for! So you don’t have to contaminate everything you touch!”

Mary winces and Sidney exhales loudly.

“Sorry, Mary. But to not have insurance, Tom… What the hell are you going to do now? Have you heard from Denhams?”

Tom, aged ten years in the last few days, shakes his head. “No, but they’ve got as much skin in the game as I do. More than I do. If I can convince them to put a bit more in, get the other shareholders on side…”

He’s eternally ambitious, always optimistic. Loving Tom is a luxury that’s becoming increasingly expensive for his siblings and wife, and still Tom Parker assumes that it’s his good luck that gets him through life mostly unscathed.

“Your investors have just taken a £50 million hit and you think a capital call is the answer? Jesus fucking Christ, Tom,” Sidney says, enraged again, and storms out.

In the melee that follows, Charlotte slips away, standing behind Sidney while he lights a cigarette and takes a long, shaky drag.

“What’re you going to do,” she asks quietly. “There must be someone who’ll invest. Surely it’s just a question of what they’ll want in return.”

Sidney turns to face her, a sad smile breaking through the perpetual scowl.

“My brother is a financial pariah. Everyone knows it, except him. The banks won’t touch the project. Arthur and I can’t keep bailing him out. He hasn’t paid his lawyers for months. But there’s probably one private equity house that hasn’t already said no. It’s that or buy a hundred tickets for the EuroMillions,” he jokes, but it falls flat.

Crushing the cigarette on the gravel, he draws Charlotte into his embrace, kissing her hard, and she gives as good as she gets.

Sidney keeps her in his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head. They’re hardly being inconspicuous, standing on the Parkers’ drive in front of the kitchen window, but Charlotte’s pretty sure that Mary twigged there was something more to their disagreements before either of them did. 

They haven’t talked about what they are - maybe friends with benefits, except they’re not really friends. All Charlotte knows is that her boss’ brother pisses her off ninety per cent of the time, that they have a hard time finding common ground and that he’s someone she really shouldn’t be kissing in dark corners. 

They argue about investing in fossil fuels, the architectural merits of The Vessel (which Sidney has seen and Charlotte is dying to), whether or not it was fair of him to send Georgie’s boyfriend running for the hills.

But she also knows that her stomach flips whenever he looks at her and she feels bereft when he doesn’t, that he leaves her speechless and confused and deep in thought, and that she might be a little bit (a lot) in love with him.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“What for?”

“Cig smell.”

Charlotte laughs against his chest. “Today is not the day for a lecture on lung cancer.”

“I get off that easily? No bargaining?”

“Got to keep you on your toes.”

Sidney looks down at her with a smile that almost breaks her heart. “That you do, Lottie.”

He kisses her once more, the nickname only he uses soft on his lips, and wrenches himself away to climb into his car. “I won’t tell you to behave- you’ll only ignore me,” he calls out of the window, faux-serious behind his sunglasses, and Charlotte’s left to watch the Jaguar race down the road, away from her.

She’s not stupid. She knows, soon enough, summer will end and with it her internship, and she’ll be back at UCL living off coffee and surrounded by drawing paper. Sidney will carry on doing whatever he does, meeting whoever he meets, and she’ll just be another girl from the summer, an easily forgettable face amongst a sea of society blondes.

But she thinks back to the night before, when she’d laid against his chest in one of his old t-shirts and he’d run fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead, told her she makes him _better_, and thinks maybe he won’t be so easy to forget.

—

The newspapers pick it up first. The London market is notoriously leaky and a week later, four different apps ping with the breaking news. Tom sits at his computer, furiously refreshing the Financial Times’ homepage. 

Charlotte’s happiness disintegrates with every headline.

_“Parker Properties secures mystery backer for troubled Sanditon development.”_

_“Campion Investment Management lined up to bail out failing property developer.”_

_“Trafalgar Investments and Campion Investment Management in joint venture to rescue family business.”_

Then, Sidney standing in front of her, looking miserable as he tells her it’s a business arrangement, a quid pro quo. Unspoken, they both know it’s the salvation of Sanditon and his brother’s deliverance.

But, of all things, it’s the Tatler article that delivers the coup de grace. The business papers evaluate the numbers for investors in sharp suits; the glossy magazine cuts straight to the story that everyone wants to read about.

_“Old flames, Sidney Parker and Eliza Campion, have surprised friends and family in announcing their engagement. Fund manager Sidney, 27, and his PR-guru fiancee, 26, were previously engaged 5 years ago, before calling things off shortly before the wedding. The two managed to keep their relationship firmly under wraps before being spotted together at the Sanditon Regatta, days after Parker was seen out for dinner with Charlotte Heywood, eldest daughter of City solicitor…”_

There’s nothing pointed about the article, accompanied by a black and white image of the happy couple in earlier years. There’s no side, no catty comment about the timing. It’s the inevitability that breaks Charlotte’s heart, the language of the fairytale in which a boy and a girl who know the same people and went to the same university and holiday at the same ski resort are destined to end up together.

The summer ends with Harry and Esther’s shotgun wedding, a faded t-shirt folded at the foot of the bed, text messages that hurt to read and hurt to write.

Lottie Heywood  
  
**Today** 13:38  
I'm sorry  
  
Fuck  
  
Lottie, I'm sorry  
  
You know I'd choose you  
  
If it weren't for Tom, I'd always choose you  
  


_Sorry you slept with me the week before you got engaged to your ex?_ Charlotte types, deletes. _Sorry you led me on and didn’t send me so much as a fucking text when you were in London?_

Sidney Parker  
  
**Today** 13:38  
I'm sorry  
Fuck  
  
Lottie, I'm sorry  
  
You know I'd choose you  
  
If it weren't for Tom, I'd always choose you  
  
**Today** 13:57  
Don't  
  
That's not fair  
  
I know why  
  
But make her happy  
  


The train pulls out of the station, calling at all of the sleepy stations en route to Willingden. She imagines Sidney sprinting onto the platform, running alongside the train to find the window she’s sitting by. She imagines him gesturing through the glass, asking her to come back to him and making an irritating, loveable fool of himself in the process.

She imagines hoisting her bag from the luggage rack, bumping into passengers as she heads for the doors, jumping off and into Sidney’s arms as the train pulls away.

Sidney Parker  
  
**Today** 13:38  
I'm sorry  
Fuck  
  
Lottie, I'm sorry  
  
You know I'd choose you  
  
If it weren't for Tom, I'd always choose you  
  
**Today** 13:57  
Don't  
  
That's not fair  
  
I know why  
  
But make her happy  
**Today** 14:24  
It's not her I love  
I'm sorry  
  


Charlotte Heywood imagines a fairytale and leaves Sidney Parker on read.

—

The ensuing meetings are as painful as Sidney expected. Eliza’s lawyers are every bit as fancy and sharp as she is.

The Joint Venture Agreement between their funds is unwieldy, a 50-page document full of legalese which all but hands control to Campion Investment Management. It’s almost unnecessary, since CIM is putting up the majority of the cash, but the board insists and there’s a part of Sidney that thinks Eliza wants every part of him tied to her, til death or bankruptcy do they part.

Once the lawyers are done screwing him over, they turn to Tom. They draft a new Shareholders’ Agreement to no one’s benefit but their client’s, negotiate security over the assets, restructure the board of Parker Properties. Tom, his cheerful demeanour returned, is so grateful for the intercession that he agrees to everything.

Eliza took three things from her divorce: a name that opens doors, enough money to set up a small bank and the Onslow Crescent townhouse. Optics, though, were always her speciality, and Tom, tarnished by his latest failure, can’t remain the figurehead of a company that needs an image overhaul. 

Three weeks after it all went up in smoke, Sidney Parker finds himself interim CEO of Parker Properties, installed in a house he can’t find a comfy chair in, and signing away the rest of his life in a pre-nup.


	2. ii.

“To emancipation,” Georgie shouts, and the room answers her.

“Emancipation!”

The birthday girl clambers down from the sideboard that served as a makeshift stage, her heels long since dispensed with, orders three more bottles of champagne and settles into her boyfriend’s arms. Otis gives her a look that tells Charlotte she ought to dig out her earplugs when she gets home.

Not that it matters at the moment. 

Because, many glasses of expensive wine and multiple G&Ts down, Charlotte is merrily, beautifully drunk. Not for the first time since the breakup, but it’s the first time it hasn’t been prompted by loneliness or guilt or seeing James flash her a soft smile over his computer.

“Don’t ever date a friend,” she tells some random guest at the party, as thought she’s imparting some of life’s great wisdom. “Or a colleague. Or a friend who’s a colleague. It’ll… it’ll fuck you up and then he’s just _there_. Every day. At the coffee machine. And it _sucks_.”

She’s always been a chatty drunk and maybe she has that look about her, because her victim quickly makes his escape.

“Bastards,” she slurs, unsure whether she’s addressing him or the guests en masse or the male species generally.

Tonight’s crowd, she has to say, wouldn’t be her first choice of company. It’s what comes with having a best friend who’s throwing off the shackles of her trust fund guardianship. Money attracts money, and Charlotte’s not poor and Georgie isn’t snobbish, but her JP Morgan friends know how to throw a party and what to wear to one and what vintage will do.

Once again, Charlotte Heywood is left to feel like the poor relation at the foot of the table, in a dress that didn’t come from Harvey Nichols and shoes that pinch.

If it were her 25th birthday, she wouldn’t be spending it at a Chelsea restaurant with main courses the size of hors d’ouevre. She’d be somewhere in Clapham, in jeans and glitter eyeliner, pounding tequila shots and definitely, certainly not thinking about the dark haired love of her life.

Definitely, certainly not thinking about how he’d scowl at the guests and whisper sarcastic comments in her ear.

How he’d make her laugh during Arabella’s speech, when she solemnly declared that _Georgia_ was her “very bestest, most darling friend”.

How he’d rub hypnotic circles with his thumb between her bare shoulder blades.

Definitely, certainly not.

She grabs her bag and leaves.

—

Sidney’s fairly sure that, after spending the last three days all but trapped in his lawyers’ offices, he’s worn holes into their carpets with his pacing. He knows their receptionists by name and the address for Deliveroo by heart. The partner takes him up on his bet that he could sketch their entire suite of meeting rooms with his eyes closed, and promptly hands over a £20 note.

But now, almost 72 hours later and somewhere in between exhausted and exhilarated, Sidney steps outside and breathes in the crisp October air of freedom. It’s a grey day and rain is threatening, and Sidney wants a downpour to wash away the sweat and the pain and the ink on all the papers he’s signed.

More than that, he wants a soft bed and a stiff drink, and not necessarily in that order.

—

Harry ensures he gets one of the two. 

It’s typical, really, of Esther to bail on her own baby shower, but when Sidney arrives at the restaurant, bleary eyed and unevenly shaven, he doesn’t doubt why. The guest list is full of people she doesn’t like, her aunt’s telling everyone in the vicinity that she hopes the next one will be a boy, and people wonder quite openly if Edward will make a surprise appearance.

Sidney’s only been there for long enough to grab a champagne flute when Harry yanks him by the arm and the three of them make their escape.

They end up at a different restaurant down the road, carefully positioned at the back so as to avoid being spotted (not that Esther, as she puts it delicately, gives a flying fuck if anyone sees her). They tuck into pasta and bread and everything else that Esther orders, because if she’s already the size of a house, she may as well eat whatever she damn well likes.

Harry keeps Sidney’s glass topped up and a hand on his wife’s back. There’s a brief glance between them before he asks his best friend to be godfather.

“Absolutely,” Sidney grins, forgetting his own misery. It might be the first proper smile he’s cracked in months.

He’s had plenty of practice at being Uncle Sidney, letting his hoard of nieces and nephews stay up past their bedtime and run wild when he babysits, but something about being a godfather feels _warm_. A choice Harry and Esther didn’t have to make, a family he’s being invited into, and he can already picture their little girl.

An auburn haired girl, maybe, taking after her mother, with her father’s wide smile.

Or dark haired with brown, inquisitive eyes and an attitude of her own, a girl who takes life in both hands and runs with it.

Sidney’s mouth fills with acid. He wonders, wildly, what she’s doing right now, who she’s with and whether she’s laughing. Who she likes and who she doesn’t and whether she ever, in a mad unguarded moment, ever thinks the same about him.

If his smile falters, if his hand shakes as he picks up the nearly empty wineglass, Harry and Esther assume it’s tiredness, the stress of the last few weeks getting to him. They joke about terrible names and babygrows with Lady Denham’s face on, and Sidney tries to settle into their happiness.

—

An eternity later, Harry insists on paying the bill and they spill out onto the King’s Road. Sidney turns down the offer of a shared ride. His place is at completely the wrong end of town for them, but mostly he wants to get out of their suffocating presence, wants to wallow in how fucked up his life is and not think about what colour to paint the nursery and how many middle names a child should be saddled with and how, at this rate, none of this will ever happen to him.

Except someone up there has really got it in for him, because no sooner has he ordered an Uber and given into his nicotine craving like the coward he is, then he hears the voice that makes him want to give into all temptations.

“You’ll die of that, one day.”

He whirls round and Lottie Heywood saunters up to him like something out of a dream, except Sidney’s fairly sure he's living in a nightmare.

“A patented Lottie Lecture? After two years, that’s your opening gambit,” he asks, drinking in the sight of her. Her hair is loose and her lips dark red. She’s hugging herself against the October chill and the scrap of a dress that draws all eyes.

“Well, it was that or the ubiquitous Casablanca line. Got to keep you on your toes.”

Sidney struggles for speech, cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers. She’s here, of all places, smiling softly like she hasn’t been on his mind for the last two years, in good times and in bad. “I- what’re you doing here?”

“Georgie’s birthday. Except I… I didn’t fancy hanging around. I was gonna head home.”

Sidney throws his head back in frustration, and Charlotte’s reminded, as if she’d ever forgotten, of how much she likes his profile, how taut he is when he’s pissed off. “Fuck, I knew there was something,” he groans.

“I’m not sure she sent you the invite. You’d have hated it anyway. Lots of boys called Tarquin and drunk blondes…” she trails off, flushing at the memory of the thoughts she’d had earlier that night, all but imagining his warm hands on her bare skin.

The Uber pulls up and pulls her back to the present.

“Let me take you back at least. To your place,” Sidney says, hands up in mock surrender as Charlotte’s eyebrows fly towards her hairline. “You can’t walk, it’s bloody freezing out here.”

It’s a tempting offer, Charlotte’s pride and the thought of being in an enclosed space next to him, versus the cold and these damned shoes and the thought of being in an enclosed space next to him. She sticks a hand inside her tiny bag and her heart sinks.

_Fuck._ No keys.

“Problem?”

“No keys.”

Silence, for a moment. “Stay at mine then.”

Avoiding eye contact, Charlotte rummages furiously in a bag no bigger than her phone, knowing she’s buying time, knowing that her answer might change everything, forever.

It’s that or sit on the doorstep and wait for Georgie to come home. Maybe the porter is still around. Maybe they didn’t lock the door properly.

Maybe she knows exactly what the answer is. Maybe she knew it as soon as she saw him, lighting another damned cigarette. Maybe she doesn’t want to see him get into a car and drive away from her again.

“What about your wife?” The inevitable question.

“I’m not married.”

Silence once again stretches between them.

“Ok then,” Charlotte whispers. 

Sidney looks as surprised as she is. A gentle acquiescence, no bargaining or leverage. He slides into the Uber after her and the door closes with a sort of finality.

Onwards.

—

They race towards Tower Bridge in silence and the mood in the back of the car is heavy. Their hands brush as they clip in their seatbelts and again as they settle into the drive, and again because in the dim lighting, with a driver highly amused by the situation, what’s to stop them? What’s an extra dose of pain, when they’ve built their tolerance so high already?

It’s the same story in the lift up to the tenth floor, in the corridor that leads to the front door, in the dark apartment with the lighting that comes up softly and casts a warm glow over uncertain faces.

“I’ll take the sofa,” Charlotte says awkwardly, her arms crossed at her chest to hold herself together.

Sidney takes a breath, wanders towards her slowly. 

“I don’t think you came here for a sleepover, Lottie,” he says in a low voice. Silhouetted against the window that looks out over London is an angel and a devil of temptation, all wrapped into one girl with knowing eyes, who’s haunted every waking moment, every nightmare for two years.

No further invitation is needed. 

Whatever small part of of themselves urges caution, telling them both that this will all hurt so much worse in the morning, is buried as they kiss furiously, as Charlotte’s hands make their way under Sidney’s shirt and claim his chest as their own, as he loosens button after button until Charlotte’s dress pools at her feet and she’s left in black underwear he makes short work of.

Neither of them take the sofa.

—

Sidney wakes in an empty bed to the sound of someone in his kitchen. Charlotte, in his shirt from last night, aglow in the morning light streaming through the windows and swearing at the coffee machine.

“Hi,” he says in a voice thick with sleep, thinking about running his fingers through her long hair and coaxing her back to bed.

The post-coital bliss dissipates quickly.

“Did you fuck me because you got divorced yesterday? Because you got your money back?” Charlotte turns to face him, her cold-eyed demand a hard slap across the face.

“What?”

“My dad’s a fucking lawyer, Sidney,” she hisses, picking up the pile of papers on the counter, the ones he’d tossed aside last night before heading out, the ones he’s spent weeks poring over and negotiating. 

She slaps them back down on the granite surface. “I know what an Amendment Deed looks like. And a decree absolute. Jesus Christ. I am not a fucking consolation prize.”

Her rage, as has always been the case, fuels his. “Did you read them?”

“I didn’t need to.”

Sidney laughs derisively. “Always with the assumptions. No, Charlotte, I didn’t fuck you because I got divorced. And I know you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but you weren’t exactly backwards in coming forwards last night.”

“Then what are these?”

“Absolutely none of your business.”

“I’m not a child, Sidney,” Charlotte snaps. They’ve regressed to their worst behaviour, barbs which their past selves would be proud of. _New childminder?_ Sidney had asked, on a windy clifftop walk. _She looks like she’s barely out of school herself. _

Worst of all, peaking its head through the red flares of anger, is that little lingering feeling, the one they’d both silenced last night for more immediate gratification. Maybe they’re not meant to be. Maybe they’re pieces which don’t fit together, destined for friction when they rub against each other and refuse to give way.

There’s a battle raging within Sidney and the truth wins out. “I got divorced six months ago! And I’ve spent every one of those six months trying to claw back what's left of my money, my fund, my fucking dignity. Trying to give Tom his bloody company back. Trying not to think about you! So forgive me if, when I see you at the end of one of the bleaker periods of my life, I’m less than keen to let you go!”

His words hang in the silence. Hearts pound in chests which rise and fall, beating out battle cries and fluttering with the beginnings of hope.

And the storm settles, just like that. Two people adrift in it, the very worst and the very best for each other, feeling and speaking and loving too strongly, and acting too late. 

She’s impulsive and he’s short-tempered, and together they’re messy and maddening and so much less than perfect. 

And that in itself is perfect.

Charlotte unfolds her arms and walks towards him slowly, the morning light a halo around her repentant face.

“Shall we try this again,” she murmurs, standing on tip toes so they’re almost at eye level. Her lips curve into a small smile, and Sidney can’t help smiling back. “Good morning, Mr Parker.”

“Good morning, Miss Heywood,” he answers, bending to kiss her ever so gently.

It takes hard work to be this dysfunctional, but it's worth it.

—

Sidney drops her home later that afternoon and Georgie, in her grossly hungover state, finds enough energy to be incredulous.

“Sorry, did I wake up in a parallel fucking universe? You and Sidney? What is this, 2007?”

Her words would cut a bit more if they weren’t delivered in a hoarse whisper, a tell-tale sign of too much champagne.

“It wasn’t… planned, exactly,” Charlotte mutters, pinning her hair up and thinking of the long, hot bath she’s about to draw, of sinking into thick bubbles and Sidney’s hands on every… “It happened. It’s happening.”

“Oh, so this is a thing now? Did you talk about the last two years?”

Charlotte pauses. They’ve never talked about what they are, but somehow that seems less important now than it once did.

“No,” she says simply.

On her phone in the bath, she locates a number long since muted.

Sidney Parker  
  
**23 July 2018,** 13:57  
Don't  
  
That's not fair  
  
I know why  
  
But make her happy  
**23 July 2018,** 14:24  
It's not her I love  
I'm sorry  
**Today** 16:37  
Hey loser  
Dinner later?  
  


—

They stumble into a new routine. 

The odd night spent at Sidney’s, because his place is so much closer to the office, becomes most nights. A mug with a toothbrush becomes a shelf with her books and a change of clothes, becomes half of the wardrobe because there’s no way a man needs that much space.

Old t-shirts find their way into her drawers and are never reclaimed.

They meet after work, when Charlotte’s hands shine with graphite powder and she mostly takes his critiques of her sketches in good humour.

They argue furiously, even when Sidney knows he won’t win. They make up furiously, too, because Charlotte stands her ground and being right is less important than getting to the compromise.

They spend the first dinner with Harry and an overdue Esther being the butt of the joke, but Charlotte gives as good as she gets, and friendships put on pause for two years are reignited. No one’s surprised when she comes with Sidney to meet his goddaughter; and only Charlotte misses the look in Sidney’s eyes when she holds baby Ava close and coos sweet nothings.

Tom does what Tom does best and talks Charlotte’s ear off about a secondment to Parker Properties, putting her in front of investors to present her plans before the next round of fundraising. Sidney gives short shrift to his brother’s schemes, tells him to find a PA and lay off his girlfriend, and only then does Tom remember why Charlotte’s back at the family table in Sanditon.

He’s thrilled, ecstatic for a moment, until he can get back to rabbiting on about solar panels and coastal erosion. It’s sweet, but now Charlotte sees the vanity, the desperation for what it truly is, and she squeezes Sidney’s hand under the table.

—

Quite without planning it, Sidney leads them aimlessly up along the clifftops. The wind is blowing something fierce but they’re alone for the first time in hours and suddenly he’s as nervous as he was the first time they ventured up here.

He’s been planning this moment for some months, thinking about restaurants and city breaks and a million ways of asking. 

In the end, looking at the girl with rosy cheeks and bright eyes before him, it’s simple.

“Marry me, Lottie. Please,” he asks, all cocksure arrogance gone for a moment.

Charlotte smiles. “Thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
